Ceres and Vesta – July 4, 2014

It’s not often that one can observe two heavenly bodies in the same field of view, and even more, two of the same kind (besides stars of course).

This is what happened in early July this year with two of the most important (regarding size and visual magnitude) asteroids in our skies: Ceres and Vesta.

Using the finding chart provided by Sky and Telescope via SpaceWeather, I’ve found very easy the two objects and started taking images for about 25 minutes to catch a glimpse of their movement across the sky. The time period was unfortunately dictated by the fast-forming clouds, and thus the movement of the asteroids in the images below is not that obvious. Still, in the final stack I was able to catch a few galaxies also…

And the identification of the main objects in the field of view:

A small animation showing the movement; compare with the above image to see which “star” corresponds to which asteroid.